THEATER

THEATER; Sharing the Stage With August Wilson

By DON SHEWEY

Published: April 29, 2001

Correction Appended

THE young crowd filling the room for MTV's in-house multicultural speaker series one recent lunchtime had clearly turned out to hear August Wilson, whose plays chronicling the experience of black Americans in the 20th century have won a bushel basket of awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes. But they also got an unexpected jolt of energy and eloquence from the tall stocky man with the graying goatee, black turtleneck and fedora who shared the platform with the writer. That would be Marion McClinton, the director of Mr. Wilson's new play, ''King Hedley II,'' which opens tonight at the Virginia Theater.

As the MTV employees, many of whom had seen ''King Hedley II'' in previews, fired questions at them, the playwright and the director took turns answering. Mr. Wilson beamed while Mr. McClinton held forth on subjects ranging from the interpretation of God by the ''King Hedley'' character Stool Pigeon to the mythological significance of a blood sacrifice to the production's use of songs by N.W.A. and Public Enemy, whom the director referred to as ''warrior rappers.''

''I've worked on Shakespeare, Beckett and Genet, and they were a walk in the park compared to this play,'' Mr. McClinton told the audience. ''Sometimes it feels like Muhammad Ali fighting Joe Frazier -- he keeps coming at you!''

The production of ''King Hedley II'' is a landmark for Mr. McClinton. It is at once his debut as a director on Broadway and the culmination of a 25-year theatrical career that has gotten increasingly hotter. Two years ago he directed ''Jar the Floor,'' Cheryl West's comedy about four generations of black women, to good reviews and enthusiastic audiences at the Second Stage Theater Off Broadway. And last year his production of ''Jitney,'' Mr. Wilson's dramatic comedy about a company of gypsy cabdrivers, wound up a four-year tour of regional theaters with a triumphant Off Broadway run that earned Obie Awards for the ensemble cast and for Mr. McClinton as director.

As soon as ''King Hedley II'' opens, Mr. McClinton goes into production for Kia Corthron's ''Breath, Boom'' at Playwrights Horizons. And Disney has hired him to develop a musical called ''Hoopz'' about the Harlem Globetrotters, with a book by Suzan-Lori Parks, which will begin workshops next spring.

''King Hedley II'' stars Brian Stokes Mitchell as the title character, who has recently served seven years in prison and is trying to get on his feet financially by selling stolen refrigerators. It is 1985, and the economic boom of Reaganomics has not trickled down to the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where Mr. Wilson's plays are set. More than his other plays, this one explicitly refers to previous episodes in the cycle. King's mother Ruby (portrayed by Leslie Uggams) and Stool Pigeon (also known as Canewell and played by Stephen McKinley Henderson) were characters in ''Seven Guitars,'' which opened on Broadway in 1996. And the play includes the offstage death of the 366-year-old Aunt Esther, a mythological figure on whom Mr. Wilson's next play will be centered.

Like all of Mr. Wilson's plays, ''King Hedley II'' has had a long gestation. It began in a workshop at the Seattle Repertory Theater two years ago, and Mr. McClinton has worked closely with the playwright on its several incarnations.

Aside from the fact that it crams into three hours as much material as ''The Sopranos'' does in a 13-week season, what made ''King Hedley II'' such a challenge for the director?

''It operates on so many levels at the same time,'' Mr. McClinton said. ''It operates in the language of August Wilson, the blues idiom, the gospel idiom, the idiom of the black church, it operates out of classic Western theater -- the Greeks, in particular 'Oedipus.' And it operates in the land of Yoruba myth and religion, which is the hardest one to actualize but the one that gave the play its bed to ground it. In particular, we looked at the story of Ogun, the god of iron. The image of the barbed wire that King puts around the garden could be a crown of thorns or a circle of iron. It's a complicated play, with an enormous number of allusions, out of which he creates a new legend, a new fable, a new mythological figure, a Messiah of the 20th century.''

Mr. Wilson seems both amused and awed by Mr. McClinton's dedication. ''Marion will go home after rehearsal and read the script every night,'' he said, smoking a cigarette after the MTV forum. ''I honestly don't know anyone more passionate than he is about the theater.''

Although he had already begun directing plays, Mr. McClinton was primarily an actor when he and Mr. Wilson met at a poetry reading in 1978 in St. Paul, Minn., where they both were living. ''I had wanted to be an actor since I was 6,'' he said. ''In one weekend I saw 'On the Waterfront,' 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and 'The Wild One' on TV. After having grown up watching movies with John Wayne, who was John Wayne in every movie, this Brando guy was something else. What he did was exciting, it was real. Around the same time, Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for 'Lilies of the Field,' and I thought, 'This is something I could do.' ''

Don Shewey is the author of the biography ''Sam Shepard'' and a theater critic for The Advocate.

Correction: April 29, 2001, Sunday Two articles on Page 7 of Arts & Leisure today about August Wilson's new play, ''King Hedley II,'' and a listing on Page 40 carry outdated references to the opening date at the Virginia Theater. After the section had gone to press, the producers announced that because the star, Brian Stokes Mitchell, was ill, the play would open on Tuesday, not today.